Serbia taken off from the FATF “grey list”. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has decided to take Serbia off of the List of jurisdictions with strategic AML/CFT deficiencies commending Serbia for significant progress made in addressing the deficiencies identified earlier. Pursuant to this decision, the country will again be under the monitoring auspices of the Council of Europe Moneyval Committee to whom it will report further progress on strengthening its AMl/CFT practices.

Lack of transparency and concerns regarding the new private jet of the Serbian Government. Questions are being raised on how a plane came to be in the possession of the Serbian authorities in the absence of documents attesting to its purchase, as well as possible ties between the acquisition and the sale of the state-owned enterprise Galenika. Currently no publically accessible information is available to explain the origin of the private jet used by the President and the Prime-Minister of Serbia for travel in the last six months. The plane, valued at $6 million, was previously used by the Brazilian company EMS S/A, who also won a tender to buy Serbia’s ailing drugmaker Galenika for €16 million. Serbia’s public procurement portal has no record of any public procurement procedure for the plane and the country’s Treasury Administration has no information on any payment being made by any Serbian state institution to its earlier user or the original owner. Requests for information filed pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act have been rejected by various authorities, including the Customs Authority.

European Commission notes mixed progress made in the fight against economic crime in Serbia. In the annual Country Report on Serbia, the European Commission concluded that there has been no measureable impact of corruption-prevention reforms. The Commission further notes that corruption is prevalent in many areas in Serbia and that law enforcement and judicial authorities still need to establish a credible track record of prosecutions and finalised high-level corruption cases.

In terms of organized crime and anti-money laundering, the Commission reported some progress over the reporting period, however underlined that its previous recommendations were only partially met and remain valid. The Commission notes that the recommendations emerging from the 2018 AML/CFT risk assessment are still being implemented. The Commission welcomed the establishment of the Centralised Record of Beneficial Owners within the Serbian Business Registers Agency, as well as improvements to the supervision of DNFBPs. The Commission also observed that in 2018, Serbia improved its legal framework relating to terrorism financing and proliferation financing and implemented a new mechanism for implementing targeted financial sanctions.

The Commission observed that there has been an improvement in the ability of law enforcement to carry out complex financial investigations in parallel with criminal investigations as a result of legislative reforms, but that Serbia has still yet to establish a convincing track record of effective investigations, prosecutions and final convictions in both organised crime and money laundering cases. Concerning the seizure and confiscation of criminal assets, the Commission considers that the numbers remain low and capacities need to be increased.

Serbia falls by two points on the 2018 Transparency International Corruption Perception Index. According to Transparency International, Serbia is an example of a “captured political system”, referring to the excessive influence of its President Aleksandar Vucic. It is projected that the trend of dropping on the CPI scale may persist if the government continues to undermine those bodies and institutions that are responsible for maintaining the rule of law. In 2018, despite opposition from NGOs, professional associations and others, the government has pushed for increased influence over the judiciary, among other issues.

President of Council of Europe anti-corruption body GRECO among key speakers at international conference in Belgrade. Marin Mrčela, President of the Council of Europe Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) will speak at the opening of the conference “Implementation of Corruption Prevention Mechanisms” on 13 December in Belgrade. The conference is organised by the Serbian Anti-Corruption Agency and will look at best practices and lessons learned in resolving conflicts of interest; assets and income declaration in the regional context; challenges and success stories in corruption risk assessment, as well as preventing corruption through control of financing of political activities.

Serbian Armed Forces continue with integrity building efforts. Serbian Armed forces (SAF) have continued the implementation of planned activities dedicated to the integrity building efforts and lessening the risks of corruption in the 2018. The Integrity Development Plan in the Serbian Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the SAF, in the passing year, was based, inter alia, on participation in the NATO Building Integrity Programme, a NATO-led capacity building programme providing practical tools to help nations strengthen integrity, transparency and accountability and reduce the risk of corruption in the defence and security sector.

Serbian capital’s £2.56m taxpayer-funded decoration budget met with outrage and accusations of corruption. Anti-corruption activists and Serbia’s independent media have condemned the decorations as a superfluous expense. They point out that the spending siphons much-needed funds from dilapidated services. The protests caused such outrage that Belgrade’s now-former mayor, Siniša Mali, promised to cancel the tree contract and find a less expensive supplier. This winter, the cost of decorations was set to rise to no less than 340 million dinars [£2.56m], which is a 40% increase on last year.

Serbian Corruption Reporter Suffers Arson Attack. A Serbian journalist for the website Zig Info, Milan Jovanovic, said that unknown individuals set fire to his home and garage on 12 December and shot at his front door because of his reporting on local corruption.

The new Regulations on the Register of Beneficial Owners are now in force. The Rulebook has been published on the manner and conditions for electronic data exchange between the Business Registers Agency, the state authorities and the National Bank of Serbia for the purpose of conducting the registration of the real owners, as well as the Rulebook on the contents of the Central Registry in order to conduct registration of the real owners of the registered entity. The goal of establishing this Registry is to prevent the concealment of the real owners of domestic and foreign companies, and thus the possible entry of "suspicious money" into Serbia.

European Parliament adopts resolution calling for more rule of law reforms in Serbia. MEPs have adopted a resolution in Brussels welcoming Serbia’s progress in making economic reforms, but urging the Serbian authorities to step up their efforts to improve the rule of law in the country. The resolution called on Belgrade to “intensify the fight against corruption and organised crime, and continue to reform the country’s public administration to make it more politically neutral.”